


weather coming

by leukoplakiaa



Series: until - [4]
Category: Fire Emblem Series, Fire Emblem: Seisen no Keifu | Fire Emblem: Genealogy of the Holy War
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-18
Updated: 2021-02-18
Packaged: 2021-03-14 11:09:30
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 17,276
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29541462
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/leukoplakiaa/pseuds/leukoplakiaa
Summary: Azel is always growing, even if he doesn’t understand it (not that Sunilda always does, either). He knows much of a small world. Likewise, the lord grows, but his is a quiet experience.
Series: until - [4]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1926223
Comments: 11
Kudos: 6





	weather coming

i.

“What’s a bastard?”

Sunilda forced her jaw to unlock. She was spoiled on jams, eating at the lord’s table. “Eat your breakfast, sweetheart.”

“What is it?” he asked again. Azel made no motion to eat, big red eyes moving between her and his brother. She found him nearly impossible to say no to outright. The fine breads she grew soft on plugged her throat; would eggs make her whole again?

Lord Arvis, no longer picky about any food, gave him his answer. “Your mother and father weren’t married when you were born. That’s all.” Azel asked, one night during a bath, why Arvis (steady on the R now) looked like him but not her, why he could call her Svan but Azel was forbidden. It wasn’t hidden, but they never spoke about it—why would they? He wasn’t shocked to learn they only shared a father, or that, by blood, they were only half-brothers. He wasn’t bothered, either, much to her unspoken relief and surprise.

“Oh.” He picked up his spoon. “It sounds a lot meaner.” Yes, it did. He may have been tuned in to their status as half-brothers, but the rest of the skeletons remained in the closet. At least hers. She knew for fact the lord didn’t speak on it.

The lord eyed him a moment longer. He was getting better at not glaring over meals. He was bound to sour the food. “Who said it?” he asked. Someone was destined to tell him. Gossips were gossips. Azel, try as she might, did not hold his chin up well.

He shrugged. “I dunn- I don’t remember.” She worked her jaw, jam sticking the bread to her gums thickly. Azel knew better than to talk with a full mouth. “What? Names are hard.”

“Make a better effort to know them.” Arvis looked at neither of them but also both. It was uncanny. “Spend the day with your mother.”

“I’m suppose to—“

“With your mother.”

Azel pushed himself back into his seat. She wished he wouldn’t, since he couldn’t reach the table, but they could talk about it another time. “Can I leave.”

So much for eating. Azel grabbed her hand under the table. “Go.” Ideally, she’d tell Azel no and he’d sit at the table until he finished eating. Then, he could hate her for an hour until he wanted someone to play with, and they could start their day then. He’d pout about it during his bath too, ask a silly question she might have the answer to as he dried himself off, and curl under her arm. Troubles forgotten by morning, he’d never utter that filthy word again. Realistically, her spine was not that tough; she offered the lord a smile as they left.

At bed, he finished reading to her about the moon giving a piece of itself to the lake to stay bright, he set the book down on his nightstand. She thumbed the edge of his blanket, riddled with an unknown stain, and settled to do a thorough clean before the onset of a deeper winter. His red eyes settled on her. “Why did no one tell me?” he asked.

“It’s not important.” It was, wasn’t it? The grief of being kept. But the lord told her so very long ago that things were in the works to keep Azel, and she had no reason to not believe him. He’d yet to be rid of her.

“It sounds important.”

She’d share just about anything with him, twist herself to be something he wanted. Her jaw ached from honied candies. “It’s not. All that matters is you’re my little boy and I love you.” Azel picked at his thumb. She adjusted her leg under her, sitting closer. Their arms pressed together. “Does it hurt?”

He shrugged. “No point in gettin’ upset over the truth.”

No, maybe not. Still, things lingered before they cleared. She could look at the lord and not be seized. Four years to not startle if a man bumped into her. She’d yet to figure out when the smell of wine wouldn’t make her stomach flop, and if it’d ever touch her tongue. “It can be true and hurt.” He bit his lip, growing quiet. She relaxed into the headboard, strain growing in her neck. “I won’t tell anyone,” she promised.

“There’s nothing to tell.”

“Okay.” He leaned over to the nightstand, snuffing the candle out with his fingers, one of the few bold things about him. Cautious children, in her eyes, were a boon. Azel was her first and certainly her last. She’d bottle all these snippets of wisdom (very deep wisdom, such as keep the baby out of the hearth) and give them to whatever boy had a child first (assuming the lord kept her that long). “But if it does hurt-”

“I’ll tell you.” He glanced up, tucking the feeling away in her heart. Never a liar, and those eyes of his never hid much to begin with. “Will you stay till I fall asleep?”

She smiled. “Of course.” He clung yet to that rabbit of his (she clung to him, so she kept mum), thumb sucking broken without a fight. He never took long to fall asleep; she dragged her fingers through his hair anyway. He didn’t feel real, some days. She’d wake up sweaty, sticky, dress more patches than patterns. She’d remember it was her day to harass some poor creature and linger a moment longer to try and find the dream again.

Azel bit her enough to know that it wasn't a dream. Hell, who dreamt of childbirth? Any right woman would have woken screaming at that. 

The kept bastard out of a basket.

Azel.

It…bothered her. She rarely thought about her own parents, sent to a cousin’s at a tender age, but knew they were married, at least. She was right, she was proper (save for the counting that _unnerved_ her family and _invited ghosts)_ . Her, out of all girls. Legitimacy never crossed her mind. There was some piece of paper out there that made Azel right, correct, more than any of Victor’s other children, save one. She wanted nothing else; they were kept, they were warm, they were waiting to reunite with their lady or even _meet_ her. It was best to not dwell on the past, yet now she did as it made itself known to Azel.

Lord Arvis seemed ruffled by it, too. He did not say it outloud, of course not, but he accompanied them during their afternoon walks now. He stood a few inches over her, marked hand tucked under his cloak against his breast. Azel held her hand as he balanced on a low wall, brow furrowed in the utmost concentration, heel to toe steps down the way. Someone was looking at her; most men made her flinch, but she’d always have her exceptions.

“How is your day, Sunilda?” 

“I’m alright, my lord.”

Azel stumbled a little, so she held his hand tighter. Lord Arvis looked over her. “And you? No one’s troubled you?” Azel’s steps slowed to a halt. The dirty word. He lifted his foot, and she looked down. A rock stuck in the low heel of his boot sent him unsteady. She gave her shoulder and a steady hand on his hip as he dug it out.

The lord’s patience was not infinite, nor was his time, yet he waited for Azel to come back to the conversation. “Yeah. I’m good.”

“Truly?”

Azel cocked his head. “Why wouldn’t I be?”

Genuinely a simple boy, and what was wrong with that? “What you brought up with breakfast the other day.” What did _bastard_ matter? He was a clean little boy with a full belly and enough heart to shake his brother, too. She rubbed his hand. 

“Oh.” Short, but not upset. “I’m fine, big brother. People can’t be mean to you if you don’t talk to them,” he said simply. What sort of reply was that? A boy with only her for company. Lord Arvis, always amusing and shocking to her, lost his words.

“Go play.” Azel extended his hand, and the lord took it, giving him a balance to use to jump down. His smile broke his face, radiant. Lord Arvis sighed. “Stay in view.” 

Still joined at the hands, Azel pressed against his fingers until they bent back slightly. “I know.” The garden was a large place yet, and a yell always counted as vision. He let go, and she watched him take five measured steps before skirting around a low shrub wall. Gardens were too delicate for child’s play, but Azel never ruined anything, so the groundskeeper couldn’t say a thing.

One, two, three. Lord Arvis, well mannered, offered his arm, and while she did not think herself worth it, she wouldn’t dismiss him – who was she to tell him he was wrong? She took it. They didn’t walk too far, in the interests of keeping Azel...near, because where else would they go? 

The lord had a dozen and one things to worry about, left somewhere with room for her discomforts and Azel’s (rarely unfulfilled) desires. “He’s truly said nothing to you?” he asked.

A piece of worry. “No. Perhaps it was a fluke. No one’s bothered him before.”

“No? Or did he not understand it?” Well, equally possible. When did he leave her side to hear such things? What was a bastard to a little boy with an always lit hearth? “Would you like to hear something?” he asked. Their own secrets.

She squeezed his arm. Being near _his_ heart was rare, much as she kept him to hers. “Always, my lord.” Azel’s red hair stuck out amongst the plants, focused on his task. She had a feeling what he picked at beneath the row of ferns.

“He pulled on my sleeve, as he does,” and as if she’d somehow forgotten, the lord gave a gentle yank on hers, “and asked if I was his father. _Everyone has a dad, so are you mine_? I suppose it made sense in his head, given that I’m the only man around, but…” oh, was the lord hesitating? It was a bit of an odd question, but one she’d been braced for. He wasn’t a dull boy. Azel’s father, a topic best left rotten in the ground. She squeezed his arm. “He seemed only marginally satisfied when I told him that being both his father and his brother was difficult. Will you bear one of my secrets?”

“If I must.”

“I didn’t want to tell him.”

Ah. She always thought Victor’s burial was a formality more than anything. His plot was overgrown, if the maids gossip was true; she would’ve thought a lord would be buried in something nicer than the dirt; was he picked over, then? Whatever creature ate from him deserved better.

She tried to be kind of his hesitation. “I don’t think I could. How grateful that I have you, then.” 

“How _grateful.”_

“The closer you get to the sun the more cruel you are.”

He made no comment on how rude she was, eyes leaving the conversation. He took note of Azel, finally, boy’s face close to the ground. The lord took his walks with them, but Azel walked during them, not played. “What is he doing?” he asked.

Azel paid them no mind. “Oh, he built a hovel for some worms weeks ago. He wants them to visit. It’s why he asks for rain.”

“Was I that odd?”

“You had moments.” She would never claim to know the lord, but she swore it was a fond look he gave Azel. Better odd than flinching in closets. “He’s much nicer,” she promised.

“I should hope.”

They never got too much time alone. She squeezed his arm at the entrance of the guard. He did not shake her off. It was not her bowed to, obviously not, but her stomach flopped warmly. “Yes?”

Thankfully, Azel did not notice their company. His bent back and unused hands went on undisturbed. They’d be heading inside soon enough, hopefully empty handed. She housed too many worms in a wooden box for her tastes. “You’re being asked for,” the guard led with. The lord didn’t sigh, never, it’d be unbecoming, but he carefully slipped his fingers under hers and detangled her from his arm. 

“By?” If she asked for him, would he come? Why not try? 

She picked a hair off of his shoulder, forgetful for a moment, and instead tugged her sleeve down to reach her wrist. No one would be dumb enough to do anything with the lord plainly in view. “A girl, milord. She asks to join the Ritter.” A girl Ritter. How quaint. She knew little about knights, but how often did one ask outright to join? Once to the barracks to find a soft, agreeable lord, and that was it. “She claims to be able to use Meteor, and holds the tome.”

“You’ve let an armed stranger in to see me?” He could handle himself; it was the most consistent thing about him, really. Anything she did at this point was formality (or his laundry; he certainly didn’t have the time.)

The guard balked. “Well-” she never liked this part of the lord: how humorless his already dry voice went, how stern a cut face went. 

“I will see her. Dismissed.” One, two, three. One, two, three. They were alone again like that. Azel poked his head up, just missing the excitement. His nose and forehead were smeared with dirt. Unlike his brother, Arvis was not easy to read. “Would you like anything special for dinner, Sunilda?”

An odd question. “I’m alright, my lord. It was good to see you.”

(“A girl,” Azel tittered, heels kicked up on the wall. “Girls are icky.”)

ii.

Azel lost his first tooth half a year into being five.

He bit into a tart (his second of the night—too cute to say no), chewed, before his face scrunched up impossibly tight. He sat his treat down—she stole the plate the second she saw red on the creamy top, hiding it under hers. If Azel was anything like her (or himself, really)—which he occasionally was besides the way his nose sat on his face—blood would not be his friend, a soft child in most regards. He swallowed and spit something in his hand. “That’s suppose to be in my mouth.”

She leaned forward. He opened his palm for her. “Teeth fall out when you get older.” His face didn’t relax. “They come back. It means you’re getting bigger,” she promised. “Once you lose ‘em, you’re not a baby anymore.”

He stared at his tooth, and, oh, he wasn’t going to cry, was he? She picked up his cup. None of that. “Have a drink.”

“There’s a hole.”

“Drink, sweetie.”

“It’s bleeding,” he said, voice cracking. “It’s suppose to be in my mouth and it’s not and—” he dropped the tooth into her hand when prompted, trading it for the cup; a little point dug into her palm. Impossibly small, like most things about him. “I’m not suppose to _drink_ it.”

“You can spit.” She held her empty cup out. He eyed her cautiously, but quickly lifted his cup to his mouth. “They come back. I lost my little teeth, too. So did your brother. I grew up tossing them in the fire. That’s what we did with the lord’s, too.”

She was bad at consoling him today. His eyes widened, mouth departed from his cup just as soon as they wed. “It’s MY tooth! It goes in MY mouth.”

“You get a new one.”

“I don’t want a new one! I HAVE teeth!” He took that drink, finally. She spied the slight gap in between his teeth. Things came in sets, teeth especially so. He rinsed his mouth out three times, face relaxing some. He gagged at a point, accidentally swallowing the mess in his mouth, and she rubbed his back, heart thumping beneath his thin ribs. One breath. “Why would we burn it?”

She took careful note to not drink out of either cup. “Good luck.”

How deep could his brow furrow? For such a smooth faced child, he sure went hard. “I would think it’s better luck—no, _best_ luck, to keep it in my mouth.”

Sunilda sighed. “You can’t get bigger teeth if you keep the little ones.”

“Why do I need bigger teeth?”

“You’re getting bigger.”

“My teeth are fine.” He reached for _a_ tart, hers, appraising it.

No tears in his eyes. At least that cleared up. “Fine for a _little_ boy. You’re not gonna be little forever,” much as she wanted it so. Sleeping in his own room _mattered_ , but she wanted him forever, the sweet spot between _walking_ and _talking_ and _trouble_ and _growing up_. “Would I lie about this?”

He looked torn between eating the tart and answering her. Finally, he shook his head. “Nah. No. I meant no.” She took her hand off of him. His table manners were sloppy just between the two of them, his mouth back on the tart. “It’s still weird.”

She shrugged. “Lots of things are.”

“Yeah.” He swallowed. “Yes.”

Azel forgot about his tooth for the rest of the day (he did steal it back from her and slipped it into his pocket). He made one comment about how weird it was, tongue slipping past his gums, but the tooth only came to mind at bed.

He sat ready for bed in his room, kneeling over a hand mirror, to look at the hole in his mouth. He poked it, and she wiped his finger off with the hem of her dress. _Someone_ smudged her mirror with his little paws, something else to fuss over while she sat up for a few hours longer. “When’d you lose yours?” he asked. For all his curiosity, he rarely prodded at _her_ . She knew there to be a difference between _Svan_ and _Momma._ Sunilda had a past, once little herself. Momma...not so much.

When had she? These things were still so far away. She thought for a moment. Sometime before she’d been sent to live with her cousin, most certainly, but she’d lost the second one in his care. “About your age.”

“And brother?”

“Probably the same.”

“ _Probably.”_

He whined when she touched his forehead. One of those nights. He was _busy_ . She sat on the edge of his bed, right side, knee folded under her. (He was _old_ and no longer _a_ baby, but forever hers, sleeping in his own room most nights.) “I haven’t known your brother _that_ long.” She’d known him for _most_ of his wobbly teeth. Naturally, he didn’t splinter into tears.

Azel flopped onto his back, twisting so the mirror caught the candlelights. “Do you lose little teeth if you never get bigger?”

“Everyone gets bigger.”

“Not everyone’s the same size.”

Fair, fair. They weren’t. “ _You_ used to fit here,” she pointed at her elbow, “to here, with no teeth,” then her wrist. Did he look? He checked over the rim of the mirror for a moment, and the things that embarrassed him, she’d never understand. She wasn’t particularly bashful, but Azel spent ample time hidden in her skirts. He did his best to stay out of people’s ways, yet some days after his tutor left he’d come find her and decompress, hidden from prying eyes (mostly). “You were born without teeth, too.”

Tips of his ears red, “I know _that_. So I’m gonna lose my teeth no matter how tall I am?”

“Yes.”

“Like, all of them?”

“Yes.” He scowled, or tried to. Sunilda tried her best to not laugh when he wasn’t. She hid her smile behind her hand. “Come on. Settle down.” He didn’t hand over the mirror, which was fine of course, head square on the pillow, poking at the hole in his mouth again. Calling him _odd_ seemed rude, given the fact he’d spawned from her own thighs, but, well, he was a curious little boy, compared to the last child she spent a considerable amount of time with. He, at least, could tell her what he wanted now.

An odd little thing, but hers.

(“What has Azel out of sorts this week?”

Lord Arvis no longer needed her to ready or to wind down. At this age, it’d be _far_ too odd. Velthomer lords cozying with maids was a headache best left in the past, whether it be truth or rumor. Still, he sent for her _about_ once a week, normally after Azel got tucked in. No more bedtime stories, given that Azel could read on his own.

His bed—sleeping in the master bedroom proper—was soft to sit on, probably feathers over hay, and she could keep an eye on him as he pattered about his room. “Oh, he’s lost his first tooth.” She couldn’t see his face, but she knew him, almost. “I know, I know. It’s a ridiculous thing to lose his mind over and, no, he doesn’t have bigger worries. We’re working on it.”

That made him spare her an unreadable glance (to be fair, most things were). “What? I’m just saving you your words,” she answered. Smiling came easy.

Just as he trained the cracks out of his voice, he worked to get that embarrassed ruffle out of his shoulders. Not quite there yet. “Awfully familiar,” he noted.)

The tooth slipped her mind for nearly two weeks. She got her time with him after he finished his afternoon with his tutor, a questionably productive evening where he laid on her stomach in a quiet den. He split a book open under the heel of his hand. She pretended to be invested in the magic circles he so lovingly explained to her, a few years off from formal training (eight was the _standard_ age, exceptions withstanding), yet just as speaking cracked his world wide open, reading did too.

He peeked up at her. “Momma,” she brushed her thumb down his cheek, “have I done something _bad_?”

“Bad?” she echoed. “ _You_?” Occasionally mischievous, but overwhelmingly _good_. He could’ve been worse, she knew—his own brother had a stamped out history of foot stomping, and everyone knew the tales of the most wretched lordlings possible (the most wretched dukes, too). Anything he wanted, really, he could have; she was terrible at telling him _no,_ but he never pushed.

His voice dropped to a whisper, very good at that now. “My tooth hasn’t grown back.”

“It’s only been a few weeks, Azel.”

“But I _need_ it. You can’t go into the new year un–whole!” he continued.

She tutted. “Teeth don’t count.”

“Momma.” The crest of a whine sat in his throat.

She’d gone into a new year both more _whole_ than ever before and more shattered than ever. No bad luck found her yet, surprisingly. “Teeth don’t count,” she promised again. “Ask anyone.”

“If you say so.”

“I do.”

The days clicked by. He stared at his mouth before bed, finger crammed in there. Thankfully, he kept quiet about the gods being mad at him for not gracing him with another tooth already. She doubted he gave the belief up _that_ quickly. ( _If_ he was going to be punished by the gods, it wasn’t over a tooth; she overheard his prayers at church).

Azel kept the tooth in his room—she found it hidden in his pillowcase while making his bed, rinsed of his blood and kept for...whatever reason. She could toss it, now, make the first jump for him and concoct some story about an animal with a taste for a baby’s tooth, or he could live in the truth. Truth suited him best.

He still ate, thankfully. It never took much to disrupt Azel’s habits, so she did her best to keep his day consistent. “It’s _weird_ ,” he complained. When it was just them, she let his manners slip (probably too often, for who he was), kneeling in his chair at dinner. He kept his elbows off the table, though, and halted some use of his left hand (without correction!), so she didn’t mind. _Minding_ was for his tutor.

He let her look again, chin in her hand, gum raw and red yet. “Because you won’t leave it alone. You know better than to pick.”

Cheeks puffed, “You pick at stuff.” He tapped his fingers against the table. “I asked Brother about teeth.” She asked the necessary _Did you_? to steer conservation; he nodded. “He said it’s a silly thing to bother him over and that his teeth took a while to grow back in.” She didn’t remember; the lord’s teeth weren’t an ordeal—only ever a gap she saw on those rare moments that he smiled. Her hand trailed up to his forehead, no warmer than usual; his lower lip jutted out. “‘m fine.”

“You used to get the worst fevers with your teeth.” No memory for him, of course. (Sometimes, when Azel was rarely bad, when he fought her on nursing, on waking, on settling, she wondered what it was like to have someone else to look after Azel—not a governess, for love could not be bought, nor a husband for the idea disgusted her, but another heart.)

“When I was a _baby._ ” He huffed, a ridiculous sound for a boy so little. “I wish I could get bigger and keep my teeth.”

She thought briefly of their lord. Two years younger than when they met, so perhaps it wasn’t fair to compare, but he was certainly a child. (No doubt her fault. Arvis comfortably stood over her now.) “You’ve a bit of growing yet.”

Azel flopped back into his chair. She sliced off a piece of his roast; for a boy who could possibly be so spoiled, he shared easily. “ _Every_ tooth?”

“Each and every.”

“That’s gonna take forever.”

“Good thing we have forever.” Could they bear a secret? Perhaps. Truth was best, but was there harm in stretching the truth? (They were here because of the stretched truth, so surely it couldn’t be bad, so long as she gave him truth everywhere else.) “It’s no good to hold onto the old tooth. Keep it too long and the others will think you want them forever.”

“Teeth don’t have feelings, Momma,” he said. “Do they?”

She smiled. So bright. “If they do, would you want to hurt them?”

“...no,” he sighed. “ _If_ I toss it and it doesn’t come back, will you get me a new one?”

_Get_ him a new one? Wooden teeth were never in fashion. “Deal.”

Her smile was mirrored on his face. He held his hand out and she grasped it. “Can I have my present early too?”

Sunilda tugged on his hand. He giggled. “Let the holiday happen, little boy. One gift at a time.”

(He tossed the tooth, it turned out, under his brother’s eye. They both told her about it to varying degrees of excitement as she scrubbed Azel clean for the festivities. Holidays were a recent observation, if only because Azel had finally noticed them. The duke always touched on his duties, but the boy she knew as Arvis rarely did. “I wonder when either of you grew bold enough to barge into my office like you do. My hearth now homes his infant tooth.”

“It cracked! Like—“ he tapped her knuckles, and she popped one of them. Both boys winced, but any of his toothy distress seemed gone, babbling on about the sight of his tooth split under embers.)

iii.

Summers tended to run warm—loose collars, shorter dresses, increased time in the shade, a few nights of tossing, but _livable._

The summer into Azel’s seventh birthday, it got unbearable. The air stilled and grew heavy. It lingered in her chest too long, and Azel’s weird little cough started again, wheezing over his dinner. Even the insects went mum (they still bit).

Sunilda learned, to her oddly placed surprise, that the boys _could_ sweat just by existing. She thought otherwise, given their nights in bed together that left solely her drenched, but she wiped sweat off of Azel’s brow into the first scorching evening, dabbing a little water against his skin.

(The lord, in what she knew to be exasperation, let her lay her wrist to his forehead when they were sufficiently alone, just the three of them for the night, only Azel’s prying eyes for company—“I know my limits,” he told her. Sunilda smiled.

“And yet you’re letting me touch you.”)

She found Azel sleeping on the floor the third week of the heat, curled around a pillow. Panic seized her first, but his chest still rose. She nudged him with her foot. At least his bed was made. “Azel.” He didn’t immediately answer. Squatting beside him, knees protesting, she shook his shoulder directly.

He grumbled. “Yah, yah.” The floor seemed a good place to be, admittedly, amongst his belongings. Barely up for an hour, the downy hairs that framed her neck already plastered themselves to her skin. She missed him pinned to her side over winter nights, in the fall, but this summer was the first she found herself grateful for breaking the habit. “It’s hot.”

“Sharp as ever.”

He rubbed at his chest. Their eyes met, red to brown. Not _quite_ awake. “Who let it be so hot?”

“The gods have their reasons.”

“Blegh.” One, two, three. He sat up, scrubbing at his eyes. No hugs this morning, more than acceptable. “Can the gods make it go away?”

She shrugged. The gods could. “If you’re good,” he started a sigh, “ _which_ you always are. Good things come to the patient.”

Azel didn’t question her. He stood up, getting himself dressed in one of those short tunics children loved so much. She leaned against the side of his bed, watching lazily. He wasn’t entirely grown. Far from it. He clung plenty in his own right, securely attached to her heart, longing in his own ways. Keeping up with _them_ wasn’t hard, confident in (confidant to) both of their desires, but some days she wondered if they’d ever be more similar than blood when Azel bloomed.

Her knee creaked against the floor when she stood. He dug in his chest. “Do we have to eat breakfast today.” It _was_ hot. She’d barely gotten through dinner.

“We’ll eat at some point.” Easy to please, really, not that she minded. No reason to fret over the smallest things. If she fussed, he fussed; they fed off of one another (she intimately found out when she woke choking from a dream, and he startled awake beside her, the telling crease of his brow).

His summer schedule was lax. It didn’t help that his tutor was under, allegedly, with heat fever. (Not that _she_ doubted the claim.) “Can we go back to the shady spot?” He was getting _better_ at _asking_ questions, not just stating them.

If they had to be outdoors, better some shade than no shade, morning sun better than no sun. She pushed her fledgling bangs back. They’d undoubtedly be in by noon. “I suppose so.” He stood up right, morris board tucked under his arm. Back on this trend, were they?

They were both creatures of habit. Hands occupied, he couldn’t cling to her, but he stayed near, small against her, until they passed outside. No one troubled him ( _bastard, what’s a bastard_?). The sun beat mercilessly overhead. Her headache started the moment her eyes squinted against it.

Up to the top of the wall, unbothered by guards or soldiers or staff. One of the towers casted a shadow that would disappear come lunch, but they settled in it for the time being. Belhalla was still a questionable number of thumbs away, but today they sat facing Yied. He spread the board out, etched with dots. She touched the edge of it while he counted out pieces ( _one, two, three_ …). The lines were fresh, and the pieces he pushed towards her were carefully rounded.

“Is this new?” she asked.

He wiped at his temple. “Kinda. He gave it to me.” He counted the pieces again, nine to each, making sure. “If I draw next time I get to play chess with him.”

Playing against her wasn’t going to get him any closer, but his company was his company. The world would cool and he’d be back with his tutor. “Think you’ll do it?” She flicked a lazy bug off of the board. She knew a singular person still running at full capacity.

“I’m close,” he answered. “He said so himself.”

“Did he really?”

Azel flushed under his eyes. “I just gotta -” a moment of silence as he stole her chips back and arranged them on the board. They couldn’t move without knocking into each other or without claiming another. “Like this.”

She tugged on the collar of her dress, rubbing at the skin of her shoulder. It felt clammy to the touch already. “I’ll do my best,” she promised. “Did you bring a coin?”

He shook his head. He looked fine, no redder than usual. “You can go first. You're old and stuff.”

“Thanks.” He wore his own pretty little smile. She set the first piece down on an empty corner. Azel bested her most days (not that she actively tried), and she did not even think to attempt with the lord—the ins-and-outs sat just on her tongue, under her fingers, but Azel’s joy was infectious, and she did not know where else he would find his victories. “Go.”

One piece, two pieces. It was just the two of them, so she undid the button on the back of her neck. They’d be in when the shadow passed, or at least down below in the gardens. Even grass became warm to the touch, sickenly so, crusted in sap, and she often wondered what Silesse was like, or another piece of Grannvale. “You.”

She laid another piece down, settled in the corner near the innermost square. He never got invested until the third round, which was probably too late. She could’ve stolen one of his pieces already, but it would’ve wiped his smile away, so she waited.

Azel pressed a chip to his mouth. He only thought out loud around her (or rather in the absence of his brother), lips moving. She knew that piece of him would be eventually gone. He read silently, at last, ironed out by his tutor.

His chip occupied a dot diagonal from hers. “Do you think we’ll see Brother today?”

Where _was_ the lord? She hadn’t gotten him up in the morning, told she didn’t have to with dinner last night. “Oh, I doubt it.”

“Hm.” He laid another piece down. “He’s doing _stuff_.”

“Stuff,” she echoed.

“He told me.”

“Did he now?”

He set another piece down. “Well—“ his voice twisted on the word. Never a liar, but certainly loose with the truth. _Fibs_. “Something happened out at Pheenora.”

“ _Phi_ nora,” she corrected gently. “What happened?”

“ _Phi_ nora.” He cocked his head. “Some kinda - kind of attack. Out in Yied.” His next piece hovered over the board, deep in thought. “Have you been in Yied?”

“Goodness no,” she said quickly. “You stay out of the desert. Best we all should. There’s weird bugs that bite.”

“What if Brother sends me?”

“I won’t let him,” she said easily.

“You can’t tell Brother _no.”_ He found her eyes. “Can you?” Could she? About Azel, most definitely. Maybe scary stories about Yied needed to be added to bedtime. “That’s not the point. Something out at Yied, so things are—“ he tilted the chip so it sloped.

She waited a moment longer, brow creased as he did his play. “Things are what?” she prompted. She captured one of his pieces, setting it on her knee. He followed, but the crease he sported softened.

She knew, too, that she was too lenient when they played. He played differently with the lord—quiet, as stern as he could possibly be, settled on winning. She stayed mum as he played his move out. “Phinora got attacked, so now he’s rearranging the Ritter. One of ‘em’s got this book—“ he set his pieces down. “Meteor.” He raised his hand, just above his head, and she understood. Fire from the sky. Could sieges be quiet? “He says I’m too little to use it,” or, knowing the lord: too young and untrained, but out of her own mouth, Azel was _too little_ for a slew of things. She’d pleaded with the lord to push back Azel learning how to ride (nothing to do with her own fright of horses: they were large creatures, and he smaller than her) and, by virtue of her own pathetic nature, he indulged her.

“I see,” she answered.

Azel smiled. He did it simply, and she wanted it to stay that way forever. “A whole squadron of Meteor mages. He told me so last night.” He picked his piece up again, laying it on the board. “Then he kicked me out.”

“I’m glad to hear he’s well.” She took in the board. Where were they in-game? Not where they needed to be. Was their conservation to distract her? Such a cruel boy. Perhaps less time was needed with his brother if his sweetness slipped. (Unlikely, because she did not have the heart to do so - last night?) “Did you sneak out of your room?”

He dragged his chip across the flat of his boot. “For a minute! It was too hot to sleep and I didn’t want to wake you up.” She kept most nights until the lord retired. The heat made it difficult. “I wasn’t up late. He never lets me stay long.”

“Because you’re suppose to be sleeping.”

“But it’s the only time he’ll _talk_ to me. I like it when he talks to me,” he confided, voice dropping to a whisper she knew he stayed up practicing. Not a loud child by any means, but, well, how else would they share secrets?

Her hand grew sweaty. “It is nice to be told,” she agreed. They did not receive the same knowledge—she knew that. The Ritter bored her almost to tears (and a degree of fear, for she was unfortunately soft), but the lord no longer wanted his curtains shut during the day or his clothes laundered at any hint of sweat. Anymore, she knew the lord more than she did Arvis.

Azel, too, was shared between them, his oddities and his triumphs, more known to her than herself. He kept himself out of trouble, so their time together was always sweet. Thankfully, he did tell her when _bastard_ or anything filthy caught his ear, but, somehow, never knew the name of the mouth. Nothing too wretched, so she spared the lord and his few moments of downtime. “But you _are_ to be sleeping. Find another hour to annoy him,” she said, in a bid to be firm.

Finally playing, he put himself into a corner. She knew it to be his defeat: his lips twitched down, his shoulders slipped back; she reached across the board to push his hair back to better see his eyes. Fine, there, at least. “I don’t wanna be an annoy—annoyants.”

“Annoyance.”

“Annoyants.” Azel ignored her touch, dipping his head away; he arranged the pieces on the board to look what they were suppose to. Perhaps the summer sun played tricks on her weak eyes, but the sheen of his new board seemed worn away already. “I just want to talk to him.”

Sunilda tucked _annoy_ away as another wrong word. “I know. And you do. He lets you, doesn’t he?” The scratching of wood on wood was his answer. Her dress caught on the stone as she slid around the board to sit nearer to him. “I’ve known the lord for a while, and if you were truly a bother to him, he wouldn’t let you cling like you do. _I_ want you to stay in your room so I know where you are. What if something happened?”

“If something _happens_ we’d probably be with him anyway.” Fair enough. One day she’d learn to stop talking in _if_ s. Both boys always had their rebuttals. “When else am I suppose to get him? He shooes me before dinner.”

“During dinner. After dinner.” Oh, _that_ was a pout, through and through. She wiped sweat off his brow. “There’s about half a bell in the morning that he’s groggy, should you accidentally find him. Now come. Reset the board. You want chess, don’t you?”

He nodded. “Our shady spot’s getting sunny.”

“To the garden?” Azel twisted, half-hauling himself up to peer down the castle wall. The Ritter were up to _something_ . Would he one day be up to _something_? She shook the thought out. Why think him grown so soon? Here and now. Whatever he searched for, he must not have found it (him), nodding again. “Alright.”

(Azel managed to best his brother with the break of the heatwave.)

iv.

For Azel’s eighth birthday, he was gifted another tutor. He was not for reading, writing, numbers, or Azel’s occasional stutter, but for the magic he so longed to learn. He was an old man who’d taught the lord as well, as things so often went, until the lord quickly no longer needed him. He was not permitted to lay a hand on Azel. It meant Azel was taken from her for another block of the day, but, well, she didn’t mind _entirely._

He couldn’t stay by her side forever.

She was permitted, naturally, to attend any of his lessons should she want to. They were mother and son, no reason to be separated, but truthfully, she took little interest in magic. Occasional observations of the lord told her it was greater than her capabilities—making beds with folded corners and bothering servants for the soap the boys preferred. (It frightened her, too, but what didn’t? She flinched too often. Her boys noticed, and she couldn’t have that.)

He always stunk of it. They were not daily lessons, twice a week late in the day, a bookend to things. Azel went places without a tome under his arm–who would bother him?–and it was for the best. It dwarfed him, and the days she went to the lockable study with him to shut the tome away, he lagged behind her. She offered to lug it for him, hopefully stronger than a little boy, but he ignored her. He needed to do some things on his own, apparently, outright refusing to put his hand in hers.

It was cute, more than infuriating.

With his steadily increasing days, she found more time to herself. All of her, normally, was for her boy. What was she without him?

A waste of time, most days.

She did her duties, awkwardly knitted a row of yarn (all she had to do was _ask_ ), and contemplated bothering a priest again. They only told her the same things, time and time again. Azel would be big one day, but there was no day she’d tell him her grief. All he needed to know was that momma liked a jam they didn’t get anymore.

Her thoughts always ran in circles, doubly so without him, never an end to her unfounded grief, so she thought of the things she could end. Azel’s favorite blouse had a stain from a soup they ate on church days. Her boots needed repaired, or perhaps a new pair, before fall came. There was a brooch she had her eye on that neither boy noticed.

The handful of maids she spoke to had since retired. The older ones knew her sin, knew her pockmarked, and she was too detached from the household at large to talk to the new, young ones (who had nothing to fear, for the lord had no eye for it yet). The butler was accommodating but distant. She had a life before being ripped in half and made whole by her little heart.

Being a person without him was a work in progress.

She spoke to Azel’s tutor once in the beginning – he stood over her, as many did, with half a sneer as she tightened her voice to say her boy was to be back in the manor on time. He didn’t listen to her–why would he?–and kept Azel past dark. Worthless girl she was, she cried to the lord about it. Azel wasn’t late again.

Waiting in the main hall of the manor, against the wall out of sight, but he always found her. Mother and son, after all, and her dress was dyed bright. He returned without a tome in hand, those pretty eyes of his trained on the floor. A proper lord, he dismissed his tutor, damn near scurrying through the visiting crowd.

Azel barreled into her before she could say _hello_ . His arms wrapped around, tight about her waist. She cupped his head against her, running her fingers through his hair. “Well, _hi_ ,” she said. “Troublesome day?” Nodding, he didn’t budge for a long minute. The scent of sweat stuck to him. “I missed you,” she offered. His shoulders squirmed, a noise halfway between happy and whining.

“We weren’t gone long.”

“Doesn’t mean I can’t miss you.” She held him close; the hall was quiet, and she wasn’t meant for anything besides him. “Something happened?” she asked quietly.

He shrugged, glancing up at her. His brow shrunk in, crinkled in the space between his red eyes. Poor boy. Sunilda pressed her thumb there, smoothing it out. He’d wrinkle by ten at this rate. “Nothing new,” he answered. She smiled; he hid his face again. “Can we go somewhere alone?”

Sunilda rubbed her knuckle behind his ear. “Yeah.”

Azel leaned against her a moment more. Then, as things so often went, they were hand in hand. He tugged, as was his right, and she got dragged around, as was her place. The hour was late, for him, and Azel paused to get his cloak out of his room. Outside, were they? She wiped her hand off on hers before they locked fingers.

They slipped outside. There were a handful of things that, try as she might, frequently troubled him. Being an _annoyants_ to his brother (the way he said a handful of words, yet to be pressed out by a tutor; possibly her fault), the state of his long-held stuffed toy, splitting his numbers, the stickiness of honey. She knew herself to be biased, thinking him her perfect darling, but it didn’t change the shake of his jaw.

Sometimes, Velthomer felt small. She and Azel visited the same spots. He dragged her into the garden, taking them off the path; privacy between bastard and maid was easy to find. Behind a flower bush that went to her hip (a gift, wasn’t it? from some lord or another in the duke’s younger youth), Azel made her squat behind the wall of fauna. This much secrecy for a troublesome day? He either committed some great sin (murder, sweets before dinner) or found it too embarrassing to speak into light.

“What have you done now?” she asked. He wanted hug yet, collapsed against her front. One day, she wouldn’t be able to fit her arms around him, but that wasn’t now. His breath, warm and wet, tickled her neck.

“I suck.”

“Be kind,” she warned. Her palm pressed down on a knob of his spine. “Why spite yourself tonight?”

His fingers picked at her chest. She wore softer dresses and silkier cloaks than she ever thought possible. “I’m not where I should be with my magic. The tutor said _he_ had it by now. I forget my words, and the tome is _heavy_. I think its bigger than me!” She knew not what to do there, save for pushing it back. Velthomer, however, had its mages; it was one thing for her to plead her way into keeping him off a horse, but to take him from his heritage? Absolutely not. The lord already tolerated too much of her.

She hummed. There were pieces she could deal with. “Your tutor is old and forgets their overcoat.” He fit so nicely against her chest. “Lord Arvis is not nearly as untouchable as you think, heart. We’ve seen his errors, believe it.”

“No one else. But everyone sees mine. I trip on my feet and speak wrong so I can’t recite and I still use my left hand and—“ she shushed him; he took a breath. “I don’t suck, cause that’s not nice, but I’m not good.”

_Everyone_. Their very sprawling family, a butler, and his tutors. “Who’s everyone?” He didn’t answer immediately. A day on her feet left her sore, ankle creaking as she adjusted her hold on him. Perhaps he’d fall asleep; she’d scoop him up, drop him in his feathered bed, and he could dream honey befitting him, forgetting his troubles until his tutor returned.

“People,” he eventually offered, undoubtedly the same vague _people_ who (so rarely) called him rotten words. Self-defense did not come easy to him, from others or himself. Her efforts to stiffen his spine stronger than jelly were poor, and while she knew he wouldn’t like it, she settled it away to tell the lord in the morning. Arvis offered the firm hand she could not. “I wanna be good enough to be told things. More things.”

She looked at the darkening sky. “And who do you think he tells things?” His head lifted, looking past her shoulder, head swiveling to then look behind himself. Oh, that degree of shy over it. She pressed between his shoulders. “We’re alone.”

“The butler. Generals an’ stuff. You. Someone’s al’ays with ‘im.” Questioning his words, she looked at his eyes, finding them ringed with red. Shy and sleepy. “Sometimes he'd let me nap in the office an’ wouldnit wake me, but now I get kicked out.”

“What is a boy your age going to do with the Ritter?” He buried his head in her shoulder, mumbling _That’s not the point_ . She patted his back to the rhythm of his heart. Perhaps she’d take the whole ordeal to the lord; no need for them to be in a one-sided disagreement. For now, there was no reason to linger on something he lived with. He’d keep it under his skin as he had, the need to be in the know; they’d shake it one day. Good things came again. “No hiding. Momma needs help.” Head buried deeper _,_ “You know the stars better than I do.”

“You know yours.”

“And ours fit together so,” her most steadfast companion. “You would ignore your mother’s pleas?”

He squirmed, twisting to face away from her. “ _No_ , Momma.” He held his hand up to make the arch of his thumb and forefinger. “Why’re we here if he doesn’t talk to us, in, like, full?”

Why were they here? They could’ve been kept under a different roof, especially now; the lord never needed much from her, and certainly didn’t today. Rear Azel under someone else’s eye and return them to the lord’s side when Azel’s self ironed out to a boy steady to stand with him. But, here they were kept, _Azel’s place_ , and why question it? “Do you want the same space as a general? Or would you rather be his little brother?”

“I wanna be close.” She fell back to sit on the ground. The last time they’d done this she’d left bitten along the arms for a week. “He use to tell me things.” Meteor on high. The light of the holy tome. “I still tell him things.”

What else could he do? “Good.” She wrestled her arm free from under him, framing half the sky with her own two fingers. “There’s no shame in just living, too. See your tutors, nibble on sweets, read us to sleep. Be a boy. And, for what it’s worth, I think you’re fine.”

He squirmed. “You don’ get it, Momma.”

“I’m trying, sweet.” Being told things. His magic comings. She leaned her cheek against his temple. “Where is the Sword?”

“Which one?”

“Pick your favorite. Don’t glare.”

“You can’t see all them from here.”

“Then pick your favorite.”

He flexed his fingers. “Momma?” She hummed, waiting on her stars. “D’you promise to talk to me?” he asked.

As if they did not spend most of their waking (and sleeping) moments together, she could give this promise easily. “Always.” Bordering on too cold to be out, she wrapped an edge of her cloak around him. “I’ll give you your truths in the morning. Come on. Stars, then bed.”

They were growing closer every day, both in heart and in size. Their legs pressed together, and the inevitable day that she could no longer lift him seemed to be further off with every day. He twisted again on her lap, laying his fingers against hers to frame the sky in a portrait. His tongue took a minute to find itself. “Can I have a sword for my birthday.”

“No.” He crooked his index finger. “Maybe a wooden one.”

“Oh-kay.” He gave her the stars, one holy sword to the next. He knew the bears too, and the great pegasus the sky shared with Silesse. Where he fit it all, she didn’t know. Her own questions were slim, but he always had an answer for her, punctuated with an uncertain _“I think_ ”. He could tell her horses had three legs, actually, thank you, and she’d believe him. Best he grew up truthful, though.

He stalled over the next. Drawing his hand back to his chest, he settled even more against her. Her heart against his back. So easily troubled, yet with no words to tell her. Was it her own shortcomings? How many pieces of her dull self was in him? A bright, red-eyed boy to her...everything. “Bed already?” He mumbled something, too muffled to hear its intentions. “I know, sweetie. Let’s get you settled.”

Truly heartbroken, he slept in his own bed. Blanket tucked under his chin, weary rabbit trapped beneath his arm, and her promise in his heart, he fell asleep. She didn’t put him to bed every single night, growing daily, but his troubled nights she couldn’t tell him no. Maybe he needed her strong to keep him narrow, but he’d done just fine with a soft touch.

Two troubled, quieting boys. She’d been cast out, too, out of a heart she rarely saw. She never thought him _cruel_ , but the more his voice cracked the pricklier he got. Did she want to take it personally? No. She’d been _too close_ for years and this was only a correction. Did she end up taking it personally? Yes. If he was well, she was well. How hard could it be to make him well?

She found the lord in one of his usual haunts, the study quiet, complete with questionable posture in his chair. She stocked it away in her mind, the lord _loosened_. She lingered in the doorway for a moment: his knee nearly wed his chin, hair curled at the temples, the bridge of his nose caught by the light of the fire. Somedays, he was still seven and looking up at her.

His shoulders and back straightened when the door thudded shut. His softness never lasted long. “It’s rude to not announce yourself, Sunilda,” he reprimanded.

“I’m sorry, my lord.” She lingered, hand on the knob. Too far? One of these days she’d do too much, but now she was convinced, at least, he’d keep Azel.

He did not dismiss her ( _one, two, three_ ), however, so she stepped closer. Maybe she needed to remember what exactly they were (lord and maid), keeping her nose out of his business if it wasn’t about Azel. He did not _glare,_ so she crossed the room, sat in a chair across from the desk reserved for her or the boy, leg folded under her. “Have you need of something?” he asked.

She watched him relax again, slowly settling into the back of his own chair, whatever document he paid mind to lowered from his eyes, buttons undone at his wrists. She was allowed to stay. “You’ve seemed off as of late, and I’ve just finished consoling Azel again, so I figured I’d come check on you in my rounds,” she landed on.

“Off?” he echoed. His eyes slipped over her in a manner that, if he were anyone else, she’d ruffle her hackles. “Save for this wretched cracking of my voice, I am quite fine.”

How much could she say? The lord was yet to seat her in his displeasure, but it could happen. “When something’s bothering you, you pull your bangs into your face just so you can push them back,” she said. She laid her cheek against the chair. They were too old for hugs, too old for him to lay his head against her, too old to braid his hair for bed. “You’ve done it quite often this week.”

Still, for all his efforts to be peerless, the quick, near owlish blink at her confession left her warm and giggling behind her hand. “How much time do you spend categorizing my habits?” he accused, an incredible reach she could not defend herself against.

“ _Someone_ must know your new quirks to fill your mother in,” she said. “I’m sure she’d be quite happy to know thunder doesn’t keep her up anymore.”

“It doesn’t,” he said carefully. The lord sat his note down, and like this, both seated, without the straight shoulders, he was not as intimidating. She wanted to reach across and straighten his jaw, tilt his chin up and keep him strong. “I am alright, Sunilda. Your concern is touching.”

Sunilda drew her other leg up with her. She was mindful of her dress, arm beneath her knees. Her shoulder—the one Azel still occasionally hung off of—popped. Getting old now, was she? She’d stay until she was thrown out. Exhaustion poked behind her eyes. “Touching,” she echoed.

“Do not mock me,” he said.

“Me? Mock _you_? I'm flattered you think me that bold.”

He smiled. She wanted to think it genuine. It was nothing like _her_ smile or even Azel’s, but it was a sight she cherished, rare as a shooting star.

The lord did not go immediately back to his _things_ , his red, slanted eyes finding hers. “What do you know about my mother?” he asked. He laid his hand on his shoulder, arm across his body. Did he hurt himself in all his dailies? Perhaps. He did not tell her these things until they passed. _No need to worry you_ ; she did nonetheless.

She tapped her fingers. An oddly timed (normal) question for an odd boy. “What you do.”

“Sunilda.”

What did she know? What did he want to know? The finer details had slipped away—she couldn’t remember what hour she woke, how she liked her hair done, the scents she liked for her room, the full dip of her waist when she laced her dress up. Cigyun, both as a topic and woman, had long been packed away. “Wherever she came from didn’t have locks. I had to remind her to use it most nights,” she said. “I know she loved you. She’d send me shopping with a list and I’d return with a dozen trinkets for you. You may not have liked me then, but when Victor would take our lady she’d ask me to look after you. I think she hated nurses as much as you do. When we’d go on walks she’d always look for you from afar. I still wonder where this sweet little boy she talked about is.”

“You still think of locks.” Was that all he took from her? His posture slipped again; who was she to complain?

“I do,” she admitted. “I don’t use it often, but with you boys getting older I might be able to again.”

Kin with his brother in the way their smooth faces could harden so fast. Would she be the only one to keep young? Imagine that. “What does _me_ getting older have to do with you locking your door?”

Head tilted, “Are you to be fifteen and still sleeping in my bed? Truthfully I should’ve kicked you out years ago. And Azel only ever wants me in his anymore.”

“Why lock it? There’s no one here to bother you.”

“It helps me sleep.”

“Why?”

They were going to bounce on this, weren’t they? “Because it does. We’ve talked about this before.”

“You’ve never given me a straight answer.” She hadn’t. He was right, as these things so often went. Always when he was _older_ . Would he ever be old enough? Priests said she was too stubborn to move on. A sister lived the same hell and came out _stronger_ , unlike her, who willfully hid behind children. If she had not moved on after seven years, it was her _own fault_ . She _wanted_ to flinch. “There is no one to hurt you. If anyone foolishly did, I’d handle it.”

Yet the few times her lord found her teary-eyed, he took it with grace. “You’ve looked after me all these years, Arvis. I want it no other way.” She swallowed. “I’d like to keep it that way when your mother comes home.”

Sunilda stamped down the apology she wanted to give. Far too bold. Eggshells she put there herself littered the floor, but it may have been the only time either one of her boys touched a broom. “If we must.” Her heart twisted. It’d long went dark; she kept Azel out past his bedtime, undoubtedly going to be rotten in the morning for his poor tutor. “Come. I’ll walk you back to your room.”

“Are you off to bed so soon?”

“No.” Of course not. Velthomer had no nightlife under its duke’s hand, but Arvis dwelled equally under the moon as he did the sun. Far too many things to do.

She popped her hand against her knee. “I hoped to stay until you retired.” She wasn’t great company.

“Did you now?” He peeped past his shoulder at the window. Either he intended to burn late, or her insistence could get him down early. Some days he was much more willing to bend that sturdy spine to her whims. “I’ll permit it.” She did not give thanks, wretched in that way, but she smiled. His eyes rolled, uncouth, truly, but here she was. He did not fix his shirt. “What bothers Azel?”

Was there enough time in the night? Arvis did not always understand his brother, especially when it concerned him. One day she’d parse it down. “Nothing pressing.”

v.

Azel stood on his toes, peering at the flat of the table. They’d been here for nearly half an hour—she kept a calm count in her head. Her hand fit just in the curve of his neck and shoulder. Perhaps it was his hair that kept the shopkeeper from tossing them out, feeling his eyes on them. (Help was only one scream away, she knew, from either her lips or her boy’s; the same red hair kept guards watching them too.)

“What’cha get for your fifteenth?” he asked.

“Not much.” She wasn’t much help, she knew. They, themselves, rarely got the lord gifts for his birthday. As it went, it was left over from those early times, where she wasn’t quite sure what she was doing in Velthomer, with herself or her little duke. The lord’s ninth birthday was the first she’d given him a gift, an inconsequential inkwell he kept on his bedroom desk. (She’d felt ridiculous, in honesty, giving her lord a gift. She doubted it was the appropriate reaction—all he did for her—but what could _she_ give a duke? If he found it, or her, repulsive, he kept his thoughts to himself.) Azel’s gifts to him had been even smaller, fit for his hands. “You needn’t fuss this much over a present.”

By his own mouth, the two of them did not need to gift him like the other castles did. (It saved her the grief of it.) They were more than strangers. “But it’s a big one. I wanna do it right. And I get gifts for _my_ birthdays.”

“ _You_ get gifts because you’re little and cute. Your brother is not little nor cute.”

“Was he ever little, you think?”

Her hand left his shoulder. “I’ve _known_ your brother since he was seven, and he stood about...here,” her hand just at her breast. Azel looked up, head tilted without ever bumping into her. They were the same age, in a way, and yet they could not be further apart. Azel huffed a bang out of his face. “We’ve other things to do, heart. Hurry up.”

He scuffed his shoe against the floor. “Why can’t the tailor come in-house?” He stood up on his toes to peer even further, hand on the table.

“I don’t want the tailor in-house.” They’d be back out. She knew it. He thought his brother picky. “Hurry up, heart,” she repeated.

Biting his thumb, “Can I come back later?”

“By yourself? No.” He fell back against her, doing his best to split her soft heart open with his eyes. She brushed her hand across his forehead. “Why so shy over a present?”

“He’s only fifteen _once_.”

Most days, she felt like a wretched mother. One small look from him and she buckled. He’d grow up spoiled and wicked, and she’d have no one to blame but herself. “…we can come back out after dinner,” if permitted. “How ‘bout it?”

One, two, three. “Fiiiiine.”

She forced a smile towards the owner as they stepped out. Azel gripped her hand, business as usual. They’d been woefully unproductive in their hours out—Azel distracted by candied nuts—but it was better than getting in the way of the staff.

His fifteenth birthday, public, and something of note. Allegedly, the prince would be around. Lord Arvis invited him in (private) hopes of shaking off his guardianship, and perhaps even grander, given _proper_ control of his own Ritter (told to her during Azel’s weekly bath, sat on the edge of the bench – he took no offense in just talking _at_ her). She’d forgotten about it. Prince Kurth had kept him in Velthomer, all she could hope for, and the rest slipped her mind. Surely _something_ happened in the past years (something always did with the prince, she thought) but no gossip found its way to her.

His birthday, too, meant Azel’s first showing. He’d been kept away from the few parties held in Velthomer (hosted by an uncle he did not know existed) that his brother attended, too young to go himself, too potentially rotten, but he was better mannered than most adults she knew. No problem in her eyes: it kept her away from them too, lest she suddenly grew comfortable putting him in the hand of a nurse for a night.

But, much as she hated it, he was _older_ now. She trusted him for a few hours. He’d stay out of trouble and orbit the lord; what trouble could he find there? The lord kept him straight. It meant, too, he needed to dress nicer. Dressed fine, yes, but lords wore a bit more than he usually did. Plus, to her amusement, the way he grew kept him out of his handed-down clothes. Hemming his clothes (outsourced) took more work than fitting him for a wardrobe.

The tailor was waiting for them, or the coin promised by the tint of Azel’s hair. She stayed seven (plus a toe’s) steps away from the man, hand tight on her purse, half an eye on the door. (Azel knew nothing of her burden, nor would he ever, but he’d so casually dropped _lord brother_ last time, which immediately straightened the tailor’s back, as if he peered into the unfortunate depths of her mind.) Azel fidgeted throughout. They’d been here once before, some three weeks ago for the initial fitting – never such a thing as too much time—and he’d been as squirmy then. To no one’s surprise, he hadn’t grown half a head between then and now, so he could be all right and proper-like for his brother’s birthday, clothes pulled off his body and folded up.

He joined her, and she fixed the button of his collar. No reason to expose his neck like that, but he wore simple tunics most days – how was he suppose to know? Shaping out to be a sloppy lord, but someone else could worry about that. She pulled his cloak off of her arm, it briefly rained this morning, and he took care of it himself. The fine pin they usually used for it was left home, a precaution,

She pried open her purse. He poked her hand. “Can I count it, Momma?”

One, two, three. “No, sweet.” She’d be _mother_ one day soon, wouldn’t she? When did the lord start calling his it? Did he ever call her something different? Azel could not grow big and strong calling her _momma_. (Who saw Azel and his errors?) “Say thank you.” She dug coins out of her purse. Four, five, six.

She counted the coins again (seven, eight, nine). At some point she’d stopped getting money right to her hand, something more like an _allowance_ , but as long as she and Azel were cared for, what did it matter? Hungry only once in all these years, and at her own stubbornness. She did nothing for the household, and being paid to look after her own son scratched her wrong. “Momma?”

“Azel.” She wasn’t _rude_ , so she forced a smile in parting. The man was paid, Azel had his clothes – no reason to linger. She tugged the hood of his cloak up, pushing his bangs beneath it.

A child of deep worry, and perhaps a deeper love: “Is there enough to get him something?”

“Plenty.”

“What about candy?”

“No more candy today. You’ll spoil dinner.”

“Momma.”

“No.” He sighed, resigned, grabbing her hand. They already missed lunch with the lord – planned – and now she had to take him out after dinner, assuming he wasn’t too tired (assuming they were allowed). Candy after dinner, perhaps. Her teeth were meant for it. He stopped to point out candy, of course, trying once more.

She gave his hand a squeeze. He gave up then.

They slipped through the crowds. His hold on his packaged clothes never wavered, a sturdier child. They were trying to stay out of the household’s hair, so they ignored the bustling servants. Their lord was fifteenth minus three days. Due for company, for lords did not come of age everyday, Azel, undoubtedly, would be in her bed, or perhaps her room, unaccustomed to large groups of people.

Oh, he’d be fine. He was her boy.

Confident enough in his home, he let go of her. What time was it? Too early to bother Lord Arvis in any form (unless it wasn’t – Lord Arvis took to party planning as swiftly as he did anything else, and, perhaps if they did not live under the same roof with a shared history, she’d consider his deftness unnerving). Part of her wanted to. She hadn’t seen him all day.

Azel put one hand on his hip. “When am I gonna be fifteen?” She pulled his hood back. He could be red under his roof.

“Do your math.” She pushed gently on his shoulder. “Go put your clothes somewhere safe.” He agreed, of course, dragging her with him. Out of people’s way, first and foremost. What other way did she want it?

She talked him out of keeping _safe_ under his bed, a spot best reserved for hiding games, storing his clothes in the base of his wardrobe. Perhaps his clinging would bode ill one day, but who else did he have now? The three of them, and the promise of another. She got him in clothes that did not stink of the market, for the sake of her own nose.

Alright. They could bother their lord now – bother him, have dinner, and sneak out again. Azel’s tutoring had been disrupted by the collected chaos, the two of them company again. He was suppose to be spending the day studying still (for his handwriting was sloppy, and allegedly he struggled to spell), but as long as he read before bed, she wouldn’t fight it. He _could_ read, he _could_ write, so what more mattered? What child _could_ spell?

(One. Always one.)

The lord did not look happy to see them, but he didn’t look unhappy. Azel pressed his arm into her leg when their lord did not spare even a fleeting smile, but the boy always had one himself. They fit fine against the wall, and she did not envy the servants left to scrub the floor. The hall, even with the previous duke’s passing, sat empty for only a few years; her duke had no taste for parties, but the rest of the family certainly did. (He would have to one day soon – food and drink kept the nobility happy between themselves, and he’d have to play nice with the other duchies in more than letters. Soon to be free of guardianship but his own – why did the thought irritate her?)

“Hey.” She laid her hand on his shoulder. “He knows I don’t like potato skins, yeah?”

“I’m sure he does.” He looked up at her, something devious almost there. “You won’t be having sweets without dinner of _some_ sorts.”

“Uh-huh.” The full curve of his cheek fit against her thumb. “You eat candy without dinner.”

“I do not.” Well, _one_ time, but much never slipped past him. If only little boys stayed in bed. “The only one who eats sweets like you do is...you.”

Azel did not have time to defend himself, nor did she have time to shake him by his chest. The sooner they were (briefly) spoken to, the sooner they go back to being unimportant. (She wasn’t keen on spending time in a space so pockmarked by the last lord, anyway.) “Come,” Lord Arvis beckoned; for all his worries of being _untold_ , Azel could not leave her soon enough. He scrambled to his brother’s side, and she did her best to catch up without the scurrying.

“I did not expect you two back so soon.” The lord could part bodies in a way they couldn’t – there was no sticking to the wall for him.

“We’ve been gone all day!” Azel walked on the balls of his feet in some effort to close the distance between them. “Momma has something to ask you.”

“Does she now?”

“I do?” Azel looked pointedly at her. Right. “Oh. Our little heart didn’t finish his errands. He wants to leave again after dinner.”

Lord Arvis laid his hand atop his head. “What did you forget?” he asked.

“It’s a secret.” Secrets for a boy who never hid anything.

“It’s your clothes, isn’t it?”

“No! We got mine.” Azel pulled his hand down, but she didn’t miss the tint of his ears. The boy was neat, never forgetful, to be on his best behavior for the lord he longed to stand with. (He also liked playing outside with his wooden sword, so he got a little sloppy.)

“And your mother’s?”

His mother’s? Oh, that was her. “ _My_ clothes?”

“You don’t intend on wearing one of your old dresses to my party, do you?”

They were both missing something, weren’t they? She picked at her thumb. “I did not know I was coming,” - who was she? - and, always truthful, “nor do I want to.”

Lord Arvis’ steps stopped; he caught a stumbling Azel by the shoulder. “What?”

Eyes were everywhere except her bedroom. They were something, even if neither of them wanted to admit it. “I may be fond of you, my lord, but I’m not keen to be in a room of drunken nobles all night.”

“Are you denying my invitation?”

“I thought I was permitted to?” Plain in private, and it meant she could have a bit more attitude than she would’ve felt comfortable with. Still, she’d cross the line eventually. She always did. Someone always did.

“You are,” he assured. Azel puffed his shoulders up, stuck between their...disagreement. Everything in his life was simple. “You have attended to me for all these years, and now you-” how often did he lose his tongue? “-you tell me _no_ ? You have cleaned my sick but a _party_ is too much?”

She strengthened her jaw. “Yes.” They were here for Azel’s needs. “May we go? The boy wants to get you a present.”

“Momma!”

Lord Arvis always held his reputation of a stern duke with a quickly struck temper. She’d yet to see it. “You may. I will take dinner on my own.”

“ _Brother!_ It’s your birth-week,” he grumbled. The lord stooped to say something to his ear; perhaps a soft spot in his heart. He, in a habit she knew, tapped his fingers to the back of his hand. (One, two. One. Two.) “Okay.”

“Don’t pout. Your face will stick.” Azel straightened his lips. “Have a good night, little brother.” Nothing for her. Her heart thumped.

All meetings were brief.

Dinner was the two of them, and Azel got his gift; she was made to wait outside on the street, not allowed to look inside his coat at the hidden present.

The prince arrived in the morning. She heard about it rather than saw him from the mouth of a girl. Azel, true to her prediction, crawled into her bed, talking nonsense right to her heart. She rubbed the grief down and out his spine.

Lord Arvis had to play nice with the prince, always, leaving her and her boy to their own again. Quiet and out of the way. Someone turned fifteen every day, but dukes did not. She offered him smiles when she spotted him across the way; the lord never offered one back (why would he?), nor did he eat with them. No question of _if_ she did something – she did.

Parties felt odd – forgotten – and this would open the gates, would it not? No longer a child, no one to play _guardian_ and _protect_ him (from several days away). Her Azel. Nothing more.

Alone. 

One, two, three. Things were odd again – the crack of the lord’s voice when he said _denying_ , Azel’s new bedtime fidgeting, the nostalgic crowding of the halls with the days: back to the old things. Long vacant villas crowded with duchies Azel now knew.

Her lord.

Azel was never a difficult boy; she dressed him slightly early. The collar was too big, in her opinion, tall on his skinny neck, but he was a handsome little boy. She knew no one to stick him with for the time being, so she sat him in a quiet part of a quiet den, away from the door and any raucous. She carefully rolled his sleeves back, for he was to be practicing his letters, and the last thing his white blouse needed was a splotch of black ink on it. “Momma?” he asked. “Where you going?”

“To check on your brother.” Azel gave her a look. She crouched beside his chair, hearing her knee creak. “I know. Are you sure you’ll be alright tonight?” she asked. His hand, not so little anymore, rested in her palm.

He nodded. “ _Yes_ , Momma. We talked about this.”

“I’m just checking. We’ve never been apart,” she reminded. He wasn’t _leaving_ her, but he’d be gone from her side for a night. “I don’t want you up late. No late sugar.” Another look, coupled with a pout he was suppose to be grown out of. She was the one that would have to deal with him in the morning, cranky from sugar and in need of a bath. It was _her_ boy, so she never minded, but it didn’t need to be difficult. “You can sleep with me tonight,” she offered.

“Duh. You’re my momma.” One moment where no one moved, before he grinned, kissing her hand. “Okay. Have fun with him.”

She smiled. “I’ll try.” She fidgeted once more with his clothes: pinning his sleeves back, fighting with his collar. His feet kicked back and forth, shoes with only a single crease. A lord’s little brother. A lord. He’d be there soon enough: he couldn’t hide in a maid’s skirt forever.

Right. A boy in her skirt.

(Not even a gift.)

Arvis hadn’t needed much from her over the years. He still didn’t. But she was weak, disastrously so (being weak gave her Azel), and could not shake the urge to check on the lord during these times. He was grown, without _guardian_ or anything of the sort, but she wasn’t (Cigyun’s smile).

The lord let her in his room, or, well, gave permission for her to do so. She didn’t spend a lot of time here anymore. Nightly chatting disappeared. Dressing him had always been an excuse. He did it himself since he was seven. _Nothing odd_ , but he never bared himself. He dressed before his mirror (somewhere between thirteen and fourteen), so much more efficient than her. “Do you need something, Sunilda?” he asked. Not in particular, no.

“I wanted to see you. You’ve been busy for a few days.” She took a step forward. “You haven’t been eating with me, so I don’t know if you’re eating. We haven’t spoken so you could be stewing,” _as you do_ , “and I’d never know.”

How many shirts did he have to wear? Her years of watching him ready never tuned her into the fashion. “I am fine.”

Nothing else given. One, two, three steps to be back at his side. She laid her hand on his elbow. “We’re suppose to be honest.”

“I am.” The lord either forsook his cologne tonight or had not gotten there yet. “Why would I lie to you?” He finally gave her his eyes, glancing down at her. He wore a bit too much black for her tastes, bright hair stark against the canvas of his shoulders (stray hairs often somewhere else), but it cut an intimidating figure.

As if she were not there, he pinned his own wrist. “I don’t know.” She stood up a little more. He grew fine. “I wish you’d let me help you.”

“Sunilda.”

“...I know.” She _held_ his elbow, two hands now. “My lord?” Why had she come? What was she even going to say? She’d told him all _her_ ills, heard his, and now came to him with an empty mind. She never thought these things to the end, took his few minutes, and-

All her errors, and he never sounded upset. “Yes?” Why was he so hard to talk to? She’d tended to every one of his shared needs since he stood just beneath her; he shared food from his own plate. She was more than most, yet could not manage her way to his birthday. She looked down, suddenly aching for a drink, her dark blue dress meeting the black of his slacks in the shine of the mirror. Looking was _wrong_ , but they never fit together anyway: taller than her, by a head now, her head just clearing his shoulder; dull brown hair, dull brown eyes.

“It’s your birthday,” she dumbly settled on. Eight years. “It’s my own short comings that keep me from you, nothing you’ve done, and, well, I don’t have a stomach for wine, and Cigyun never took me to those sort of things, barely went herself, because, well, you know.” How often could her sentences slip?

“I remember. Would you like to know something, Svan?”

Svan. “What?”

Carefully, he pulled her hands off of him. He had oddly bony fingers broken up by rough knuckles. (Cigyun’s hands: small, soft, but unwavering.) “I only expected you for an hour.” An hour. Not even. “I don’t blame you. These things can be a bore. Food can be sent up, but you’re always free to request something yourself. I won’t have Azel out late,” whatever casualness he briefly handed over was gone, his voice tightened again.

She hadn’t _said_ anything. She talked in circles. Some things never changed. “Thank you, my lord. I’ll be waiting.” Lord Arvis _looked_ too, eye contact improper but long accepted (what couldn’t he do?), meeting in the reference of the frame. At a glance, she saw neither parent, but if she looked, he bore Cigyun’s brow. Cigyun deserved this, not her. “...he’s not to have sweets without dinner.”

“I know.”

“Don’t let him fool you.”

“Azel? Fool _me_?”

“He can be slippery.” He gave her a hand a gentle squeeze, thumb pressed into the valley of her palm. How could anyone think him cruel? How could she? “Come, my lord. I’ll show you where he’s hidden.” She had no room on his arm, certainly not now, but she bid her time there anyway. Unlike his little brother, who she was convinced would never fit in clothes right, his collar laid just right on his neck, and his pants hit his heel with no error. The only stain on him was her.

Thankfully, Azel was still clean. He spied the two of them together, scrambling to hide whatever letters he decided to shape. His book shut with a thump. He wore a pretty smile, “That wasn’t long.”’

“I told you so.”

Azel hopped off of his chair; dens were plentiful, and she wanted to keep eyes off of her boy. It’d catch up to her eventually. It always did. He stared at her expectantly, yet to address his brother. Right. She let go of the lord’s arm to stand a step away from him, and Azel split the difference, comfortable between them. His shoulder bumped her wrist. “Hi, brother.”

“Azel.” He noticed the fit of Azel’s clothes, pulling his shirt around his neck, always careful. “You said this was fitted.”

“It is,” she said. “You’ve met the boy.”

“I’m right here,” Azel reminded them. She always felt absurd with them. Her voice grated against her own ears. “It’s okay. I’ll be big soon.” _Soon_. Half a decade was soon. Poor boy always stifled conversation, loitering awkwardly between them.

Arvis forgot about the collar. “Come, Azel. We should be going.”

None of them moved; she faintly heard the early stages of merriment from the hall. It was her own cruelty that had her skipping his birthday, and here, with her boys in finery and she in a gown older than her youngest, something like guilt struck her heart. He never asked for anything she couldn’t give, all while keeping her comfortable.

Denying him. Not even a gift with her name on it.

Wretched. Who else did he have? She looked up at him, across the little boy hidden between them. Who else did she have? Arvis, Azel, a memory.

Mouth dry, she pressed a kiss to his cheek. He’d never hit her, never his father, but maids could only be so familiar with their lord. She knew it selfish to look at him and think him _hers_ , but as long as she kept it to herself- “Happy birthday, Arvis. To eight more we go.”

“Only eight?” he asked.

Azel perked up, glancing at his brother. “ _I’m_ eight.”

“Smart boy.” Lord Arvis carded his fingers through his hair to ruffle his bangs. Azel smiled. A boy of infinite worry and yet simple calms too. “How old will you be in another eight?”

She petted Azel’s hair back into place. Trying to keep him _nice,_ and the lord undid it. “I’ll give you eight more when these expire,” she promised.

He smiled. Nothing more, nothing less. Nothing hidden in it, and never one for jokes. She tucked the sight away for rainy days. “Fair enough. Have you figured it out?” he asked.

“Duh. It’s sixteen.” Maybe being fussed over was a good place for him to be. He fit square in front of his brother. “Hey. Momma.” She knew what was coming, kissing his cheek too. Under what roof would his _brother_ get a kiss and he didn’t? Perhaps the lines on his face were from smiling, dusted pink, and not his discomfort. “Oh-kay. I’ll see you later.”

(Azel returned to her sleepy, but peaceful, clothes clean but wrinkled; he mumbled to her about the night – first, the sweets, then dinner and dancing and duchies and dules and brothers. Music kept him up half an hour longer, squirming his way to sleep beneath her arm. Both boys were tired with breakfast, but Arvis’ recap was almost as positive: the lord always got what he wanted.)

vi. 

Fifteen meant the lord was soon due for school. Belhalla was a few days away, but her mind slipped as he explained the terms to her. A boy of short patience, but he always caved and told her twice. Sloppy, perhaps, but where was the harm in their private moments? His hair was _just_ too long for school, and it needed fixed. Why it was _her_ she both knew and didn’t.

“You’re placing a lot of faith in me,” Sunilda murmured. The scissors sat heavy in her palm. She’d long accepted the wealth the lord and hers lived in. She knew it touched her, too, when the hem of her dress no longer needed to be patches, but could be _new_.

“Someone must do it.” His room was nice, too. They’d been here before, but less, together. He was always busy during the day, and no longer wanted tucked in. Still, she’d relish any moment to be with him quietly: together, at his vanity once more, with no overhang of _duke_ –it’d been forever.

“You saw the last time I cut hair.”

“Azel’s. Last week.”

“Arvis.” His hair curled around her other hand. “You have other people to do this. A whole castle.”

“Who else would I let near me with scissors?” There it was.

The skin of his neck was red (her ears felt the same). Soapwort wasn’t typical anymore, but things in the duchy were slim pickings as of late. “Any of the soldiers entrusted with your life, I would hope.” He made no comment; she found herself soured on the idea of the academy by this one task, but it wouldn’t be her if she didn’t fail her lord.

_To the collar_ , _Svan. It’s not the hardest thing you’ve done_.

“Yet it’s you.” Far too great patience for a girl like her. They were both waiting for something – dismissal, a snip – but neither came. The lord sighed. “I’ve left the dailies of Velthomer in my uncle’s hand. I doubt it will stay that way for long, but should he bother you or Azel, tell Oran, and you two may stay in one of the villas.” What could possibly trouble the two of them? The lord would be gone, yes, but the glares towards her had dampened in the years; the few maids who sent their looks towards her were gone (everyone had favorites). Azel sometimes told her the faces of people who called him a name (the lord _somehow_ found out). They had their routines. They kept their heads down.

“I’m sure we will be fine, my lord.” She picked an errant hair off his shoulder; too dark to be his. They could tuck it, couldn’t they? Three years was long enough to grow it back, but she didn’t want to be the one to start the growth. “We’ve been in Velthomer on our own before,” she reminded him.

Brief periods. Just as Azel had been too young to show, the lord’s presence in Belhalla was touch and go. Too many days of him complaining about over it – how could the _family_ , the _household_ , think him capable of ruining Velthomer’s name with a lose tongue at the table, when the duchy survived under Victor? She didn’t linger on it – Azel usually took her attention. “Never for long.” They were either kept together out of fondness or her incompetence, undecided on her part. “I doubt your ability to stand up for yourself.”

When did she ever? Standing up for herself wouldn’t have her _here_ , but why dwell on it? “Hush, my lord.” She gestured for his hand, which he gave. Words ready, she set the scissors in his palm. “You can shorten it without cutting it. I know you need it trim for school, but your, you’re-” maybe she wasn’t as ready as she thought. It had to be incompetence. Her lady taught her much and she could not pull it out of her heart. “Your brother should’ve been back by now.”

The boy liked his errands. Rare as they were without her, he perked up at the chance to chase something for his brother. “The Ritter know better than to trouble him.” It’d be too much effort for him, a young man on his own, but, well, he was willing under her hands. She fluffed the hair on his neck. “The boy’s legs are short. Give him time.”

She had no holder or pins on her ( _years_ ). “He’s also quick.” Arvis may’ve been willing to sit and indulge her, but his hair wasn’t. She uncurled the clinging strand from her wrist, watching it shrivel against his shoulder. “He’s had time. Perhaps I should check on him.”

“And abandon your lord mid-task?”

“I told you to hush. I’m sure the butler could cut your hair.”

“If I wanted Oran to cut it, he’d be here.” Fair enough. She always held these things. It wasn’t horrible, being his confidant, and she was _dull_ but he put her there. Who would notice if his hair was uncut? “Should you need anything Oran cannot provide, you can ask one of the Ritter. They’re to listen to you.”

She hummed. Her and the Ritter. Was she truly so fussy? She took the scissors back from his steady palm. “Must I?” she asked again; was she to be scolded for the first time in years?

It was more warm than terrifying. “Have you not heard me? I prefer it to be you.”

Right. To the collar. It wasn’t that much. Him, her, their boy. She was _preferred_. How did this fit with the lord she heard about, the lord she saw from the corner of her eye? Perhaps it didn’t. Maybe it didn’t matter. “How about Azel?” she offered.

“Absolutely not.” That was fair. Azel was sweet, sure, but she wouldn’t trust him either. The curve of the scissors was a comfort; they weren’t the same pair her lady used to fix her hair years ago, but if her lady had been strong, then couldn’t she be?

No. “You’ll have to ask someone.”

One, two, three. He stole the scissors, his fingers dragged across the plane of her palm-meeting-wrist, setting it down. “Fine.” When was the last time she’d been forced into anything? Never again. He didn’t sound upset, either. She’d understand if he was, denying him twice, but it never came. He leaned back in his seat, almost touching her, to peer at the door. “The boy knows he can come in, yes?”

“He doesn’t exactly spend a lot of time here. _I_ barely do, and I’m suppose to make your bed in the mornings.”

Lord Arvis hummed. “Do you think he’s waiting?”

_I think we’re all waiting._ “Perhaps. I’ll check on him.” She brushed his bangs back from his eyes. “Does something worry you, my lord?” she asked.

“Worry me?” he echoed. “I wouldn’t say I’m worried. I...simply want to make sure your time here is good.” _Good_. Why wouldn’t it be? “May I ask you something?”

Always asking. “Of course you can.” No longer a little boy, never one for long either, he leaned his head into his hand. When _plain in private_ turned into this, she did not know – his sick, sweat slicked brow, or the little boy hiding from the storm in her shoulder, or maybe it wasn’t one thing. They lived together, shared a memory together, shared a boy between them. It’d be even odder to _not_ be close, wouldn’t it? Her eldest chi- one lord and one son. Two boys.

His cheek was naturally clean. When did boys get hair? Would he? The few pieces of the Velthomer nobility she knew _of_ were clean faced. “If you were unhappy here, you would tell me?” She laughed, and he outwardly prickled. “I’m serious, Svan.”

_Svan_. Why did she ever hand her name over (why did he give his?)? Fingers against his jaw, “I would.” Cigyun left without a word; her memory of that long fall was shaky at best – one morning the duchess was with them, and the next she wasn’t. The lord was not in her care yet, and she kept her ears away from gossip. The three of them now. “I’ll be here when you come home.”

“I don’t think you’d get far.” No, probably not. She didn’t have a lot of places to go anyway. “Things have been quiet, admittedly, but I will be gone.”

“Who even knows about Azel and I anymore? No one will bother us if we keep keeping quiet.” He was older, and she’d promised many things. “If I may confess something,” to the ear of a duke she’d tied the shoes of, “all those years ago I didn’t want to tell the lady what happened to me. I was going to have Azel in secret all to stay at her side. But I didn’t, and if your father couldn’t drive me out, I doubt anything else will.” (She wouldn’t prod him on the where or why or how of his worry; he was sturdy enough she had no reasons to doubt him, and what good would it do?)

He sighed, never very becoming of him.”For the best you didn’t.” He’d always been careful with her (not that _she_ even knew a time when she didn’t deserve it, at least now), brushing her hand aside. “How a boy gets lost in his own home I’ll never know.”

“Because he spends so much time without us.” Sheltered, perhaps, but for his own good, and how often did he get far enough away to find himself in the barracks? His fascination grew every day. “Where are you two due, anyhow?” she asked. He stood, so she took a step back. _Back by dinner_ always went without saying, but maybe with his own brother he could break his curfew. (Preferably not.)

“Nowhere firm.” Vague again. She picked a hair off his shoulder, and he crumbled. “He and I have a few things to discuss. You and I have had our talk.” 

“Be nice.”

“When am I not?”

“You made him cry on his birthday.”

“How was I to know he’s so sensitive over his shoes?” The lord bent his head when she reached up, pulling off another loose hair. Horrible shedding, really. “I’ll find the boy. We won’t be gone long.” 

Naturally. She spent half the evening alone—she didn’t know how to knit or sew still, and her hobbies left while _waiting_ weren’t many. She ate with both of them, Azel complete with his flustered little smile when he got to hear whatever he wanted. The lord was a quiet eater, but Azel made up the difference. She took Azel to scrub his face, and the lord went to bother someone for his hair/her failure.

And, well, they were due for a bedtime conference. He’d been gone from her.

“He let me give him a hug,” he led with, “he _hugged_ me back,” Azel muttered. She needed to relight the fire after he fell asleep. He rarely got cold, but better safe than sorry. “He put his hand right,” he dragged her hand to his shoulder, “here.”

She hummed. He’d be at that height, wouldn’t he? Azel fit so nicely in her side; undoubtedly he fit snug against the lord. “What was the hug for?”

“A _secret_ .” A secret _and_ a hug. What else to complain about? His year must’ve been made. “But since you’re my momma-“ and he wondered why he got told nothing. She shushed him, finger over her mouth; so rarely she hushed him that he stammered.

“ _No_ , sweetie. You two have yours and we have ours.”

His brow creased. “Secrets are bad.”

“Secrets aren’t all the same.” She pulled the book out of his hands, folding it shut, setting it on the nightstand with a soft _thump_. She was trying to be firm – someone had to be with the lord gone – but she knew it would slip. Make his bedtime firm, keep him in his own bed with only the worst of heartbreak as an invitation into hers. She couldn’t ruin the lord, given the gap, but she could very easily turn Azel into something poor. “Do you truly think your brother would give you something to get you in trouble?” He hummed, deep in thought, before shaking his head.

Her knees no longer ached. “D’you think he’ll write?” _like he promised_.

“Azel.”

“Momma.”

“What does your brother get out of lying to you?”

“I dunno.” He twisted on his side, tangling his hand with hers. “What’re we gonna do?”

She wondered herself. The fraction of the day they spent with the lord got slimmer as he aged, and now it would be gone. Azel thrived under routine, or a semblance of one, so why change too much of it? Routine was easy with two people. “You’ll see your tutors, we’ll take breakfast, be picky over soap. Nothing’s changing, heart.”

She turned her hand, palm side up. Azel traced the line from her wrist to between her thumb and pointer. “It’s just gonna be us. Two, not three. That’s change.”

“We’ll be okay. You and I.”

“We.” He had a long day, yawning. “This isn’t the secret, but,” here they went, “if we find trouble we’re suppose to go stay somewhere else. I dunno what trouble is. I didn’t know there _are_ other roofs.” That was consistent. She kissed his hand. What trouble did the lord think could find them? Perhaps keeping out of trouble wasn’t as easy when you were stained red. ( _Trouble_ gave her Azel, so perhaps it was worth it.)

“We’ll manage. Things will be so fine you won’t even notice we'll be alone. I promise.” His fingers twitched against her skin. “Sweet.”

“Yah, yeah.” Azel, grown, took his hand back. “And that wasn’t the secret, I promise. You can keep telling me stuff.” Mhmm. He deserved his secrets, she knew, but he chatter easily, so he never received anything grand, a child with the softest heart that could be housed in a boy.

He snuffed out his own candle again, shaking his wrist out after. “We good?” she asked; he nodded. His blanket was at the end of its life, it seemed, falling limply around him as she tucked him in; she could stuff it beneath hers and get him a new one before the worst of the season. Too aged for him, perhaps, but a shame to let it go to waste. She wanted to tell him that she was just down the hall if he couldn’t sleep, that poor crease in his brow, but she didn’t always need to speak. “I’ll see you in the morning.” 

**Author's Note:**

> again, weird snippets of suzuki with the adjusted timeline (academy->;15th, 15th->;academy). i don’t know what’s up with the indents, given my doc doesn’t have them + ao3’s being weird about deleting them. i’ll fix em later
> 
> not much to say this time! besides a minor break. outline of the next part is kicking my butt, and there’s something special/mildly unhinged coming soon. thanks for reading, as always <3


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